Salaries of NIU professors and instructors were rated high against other Illinois schools but low against national institutions of higher education, according to a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The salaries of professors, associate professors, assistant professors and instructors at more than 1,900 national institutions were rated in the report.

In category I for doctoral-granting institutions, salaries of all four levels of faculty at NIU fell in the lower 20th percentile in the nation.

Compared to other state higher education institutions, salaries of all four levels of faculty at NIU came in third place behind the University of Illinois at Champaign and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The report also stated that for the second time in three years, increases in average faculty salaries failed to meet the increase in inflation.

Average faculty salaries went up 2.5 percent in 1992-93 while inflation went up 2.9 percent. However, NIU faculty members received about a 7 percent pay increase last year.

With the election on Wednesday to decide the future of the University Professionals of Illinois at NIU, the NIU-UPI president and NIU’s provost expressed different views on the effect the union will have at NIU.

NIU-UPI President Kevin McKeough said UPI will try to increase the annual pay raises for faculty at NIU.

“The Illinois Board of Higher Education recommended a 2.5 percent increase in faculty salaries included in appropriations and (Gov. Jim) Edgar took it out,” McKeough said. “We absolutely will try to acquire an increase in salaries.”

Even though Edgar took out the 2.5 percent IBHE raise in his budget recommendation, NIU president John La Tourette has said NIU faculty still will receive between a 2.5 percent and 5 percent raise through internal reallocation and money generated from next year’s tuition increase.

“I recently had a conversation with someone at Temple University, which has a union, and he said over the last three years the union has elevated the salary levels of three levels of professors from the lower 40th percentile to the 60th percentile,” he said.

McKeough said he thought the recession had some effect on state funding for higher education.

“Those who are opposed to collective bargaining say NIU is better than a lot of other schools,” he said. “But those other schools are not category one schools, so the comparison can’t be made.”

He said NIU recently has hired new employees as assistant professors at starting salaries that are higher than full professors.

“NIU was competing with other institutions for the employees and had to take market factors into consideration,” he said. “The pay increases for returning faculty at NIU have failed to meet up with inflation and they are suffering.”

NIU Legal Counsel George Shur said he thought the union will not be helpful in raising annual increases for NIU faculty.

“The union will argue that it will have more clout with the legislature and that has not been proven to be true,” Shur

said.

“Annual increases of NIU faculty salaries have been higher than other state institutions in recent years,” he said. “You have to look at the percent of increase instead of base salaries.

“The Chronicle of Higher Education report does not include the 2 percent pay increase that NIU received on Jan. 1, 1993,” he said.

“We have done everything we can to increase salaries, including trying to generate funds internally to generate raises,” Shur said. “We have done better than unionized institutions.”

He said the union will have dues that will amount to 1 percent of faculty salaries. “NIU will have to decide which way is better, collective bargaining or non-collective bargaining,” he said.